U.S. patent application number 13/342101 was filed with the patent office on 2012-04-26 for semi-continuity fiber prepreg material, manufacturing method thereof, and composite material made of semi-continuity fiber prepreg material.
Invention is credited to Geng-Wen Chang, Mau-Yi Huang, Dar-Ping Juang, Cheng-Huan Wang, Pai-Lu Wang.
Application Number | 20120098154 13/342101 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 44142009 |
Filed Date | 2012-04-26 |
United States Patent
Application |
20120098154 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Huang; Mau-Yi ; et
al. |
April 26, 2012 |
SEMI-CONTINUITY FIBER PREPREG MATERIAL, MANUFACTURING METHOD
THEREOF, AND COMPOSITE MATERIAL MADE OF SEMI-CONTINUITY FIBER
PREPREG MATERIAL
Abstract
The invention provides a semi-continuity fiber prepreg material,
a manufacturing method thereof, and a composite material made of
the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material. The semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material includes a plurality of intermittency
notches and/or continuity notches formed on a fiber prepreg
material along at least one direction to make the fiber prepreg
material soft and suitable for molding.
Inventors: |
Huang; Mau-Yi; (Banqiao
City, TW) ; Chang; Geng-Wen; (Taipei City, TW)
; Wang; Pai-Lu; (Taipei City, TW) ; Juang;
Dar-Ping; (Zhonghe City, TW) ; Wang; Cheng-Huan;
(Taipei City, TW) |
Family ID: |
44142009 |
Appl. No.: |
13/342101 |
Filed: |
January 1, 2012 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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12635692 |
Dec 10, 2009 |
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13342101 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
264/118 ;
264/119 |
Current CPC
Class: |
B29K 2995/0046 20130101;
B29C 70/50 20130101; B26F 1/44 20130101; B26D 3/08 20130101; Y10T
83/0207 20150401; Y10T 428/24479 20150115; Y10T 83/0333 20150401;
B29C 70/545 20130101; B29K 2995/0082 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
264/118 ;
264/119 |
International
Class: |
B29C 43/40 20060101
B29C043/40; B29C 43/00 20060101 B29C043/00 |
Claims
1. A composite material manufacturing method using semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material, comprising the steps of: (a) rolling a
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material to be a tube billet or a
cylinder billet; (b) putting the tube billet or the cylinder billet
into a forming mold; and (c) providing an axial pressure via a hot
pressing machine and the forming temperature to make the tube
billet or the cylinder billet become a composite material.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the fiber prepreg material is a
fabric prepreg material which is formed by impregnating a fiber
fabric into a resin and baking the impregnated fiber fabric into a
semi-solid state.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the semi-continuity fiber prepreg
material is made through the steps of: generating a plurality of
notches on a fiber prepreg material along at least one direction,
wherein the plurality of notches are intermittency notches or
continuity notches, so that the fiber prepreg material forms the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material which is soft and suitable
for molding.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one direction
comprises a first direction and a second direction, the first
direction and the second direction can each be a transverse
chopping or a vertical chopping respectively.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The invention relates to a composite material, and more
particularly, to a semi-continuity fiber prepreg material, a
manufacturing method thereof, and a composite material made of the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material.
[0003] 2. Description of the Prior Art
[0004] The composite material is made of two or more kinds of
materials; its strength primarily comes from reinforcement
materials such as carbon fiber or glass fiber, etc., these
reinforcement materials can be combined into a unit by a substrate
such as an epoxy resin or a phenolic resin. The composite material
is a designable material which can be cooperated with different
reinforcement materials and substrates according to different
applications. For example, the composite material made of carbon
fiber (as the reinforcement material) with the epoxy resin as good
structure properties, so that the composite material can be widely
applied to the airplane industry, the transportation industry and
the exercising equipments; the composite material made of glass
fiber or silicon fiber with the phenolic resin has good heat
isolation property, therefore, it is a good heat isolation material
and a flame resistant material.
[0005] Carbon fiber fabrics and phenolic resin are usually combined
to form a composite material that has advantageous mechanical and
thermal properties, the carbon fiber fabrics being able to resist
to temperatures above 2000.degree. C. within a short duration and
offer superior mechanical strength. This type of composite
materials thus has become the principal thermal insulator in
aerospace and defense technologies. Industrialized countries thus
have put major investments in the development of this material with
respect to every aspect including the raw material, the manufacture
process, or the assembly of component parts.
[0006] The raw materials of the above-mentioned fiber reinforced
resin composite material are shown in an impregnated form, for
example, the most commonly used are a short fiber molding compound
and a continuous fiber prepreg material. In general, when the
requirement for the structure strength of the composite material
component is not high and/or the main function is heat isolation
and not flushed by the heating gas directly, or when the combustion
time is short, the short fiber molding compound is taken into
consideration to be used at first, and formed by being heated and
pressed by a heat pressed mold and a heat pressed machine.
Therefore, its manufacturing process is simple and complicated
shapes can be made, the passing rate is high, the material using
rate can reach 100%, and the cost of the manpower and equipment
will be lower. The most commonly used short fiber molding compounds
are a bulk molding compound and a sheet molding compound, the
manufacturing method is to use a fiber of a certain length and the
resin in a certain proportion to be premixed and stirred or be
pressed to be a slice form, then to be baked into the semi-solid
state. Since the composite material component made of the short
fiber molding compound has lower structure strength, and the
arranging way of fiber is not easy to be controlled, therefore, it
is only suitable for the condition of short burning time or not be
flushed by the heating gas directly. When the composite material
component is applied to the environment which needs higher
structure strength and stricter burning condition, the
manufacturing process of long fiber or continuous fiber is needed.
This is because the length of the fiber, the arranging way, and the
angle between the fiber and the gas flow are all important factors
of affecting the structure properties and burning properties of the
composite material. Generally, when the fiber is longer and
arranged based on appropriate angles, the heating resistant
properties of the composite material is better, and its structure
strength is stronger, however, the difficulties of manufacturing
and forming are also increased, and the passing rate is affected by
the quality stability of the material more seriously.
[0007] The long fiber and the short fiber composite materials are
two extremes. To achieve better performance, higher cost will be
spent; to cut down the cost, performance will be scarified. In
practical applications, however, there are a wide range of
alternatives that can balance between performance and cost depends
on the environment of applications. For example, the product of
MXSE-55 of the Cytec Engineered Materials Inc. in the United States
is to impregnate the silicon fiber fabric into the rubber-modified
phenolic resin followed by being baked to be a semi-solid state
called fabric prepreg, and then chopped into squares of size
1/2-inch by 1/2-inch (12.5 mm) by an automatic chopping machine.
When this chopped prepreg material is formed by mold to be a
composite tube, its fiber will arrange along the wall of the
finished product, therefore, the structure strength will be
increased in considerable degrees. Another similar product
MX-4926MC of the Cytec Engineering Company is to chop the carbon
phenolic fiber fabric into squares of 12.5 mm. It was claimed the
best fire resistant material for small rocket nozzle.
[0008] The above-mentioned chopped fabric prepreg material is to
use a special chopping machine to chop the fiber prepreg material,
since there is not this special type of chopping machine in the
market, a specially designed chopping machine is needed, so the
manufacturing cost is largely increased. The mechanism of the
chopping machine is to make the material pass through the chopping
knifes to be slices, and then chopped as squares by knifes. When
the hardness of the fiber is higher, for example the carbon fiber,
the chopping knife is easy to be over-heated, so that the resin
will be soften and attacked on the knife; the knife must be
continuously cleaned in the chopping process, the total production
efficiency will be seriously affected.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0009] Therefore, the invention is to provide a semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material, a manufacturing method thereof and a
composite material made of the semi-continuity fiber prepreg
material that can be formed in molding pressing method as fabric
prepreg chopping material, and it will also be easier for
construction. At the same time, the composite material made of the
fabric prepreg material will have better structure properties than
the prior arts.
[0010] For people who know this skill very well, the fabric prepreg
of bigger sizes is hard to be formed by molding, even it is formed,
it is easy to have imperfections such as resin rich and/or
crevices, and this is because of the rigidity of the fiber fabric.
According to the first embodiment, the invention uses a plurality
of intermittency notches and/or continuity notches to release the
rigidity of the fabric prepreg material to be a semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material and suitable for molding. Wherein, the
plurality of intermittency notches is formed on a region of the
fiber prepreg material in a first direction, and the continuity
notches is formed on the region in a second direction, and the
plurality of intermittency notches crosses the continuity
notches.
[0011] According to the second embodiment, a method of
manufacturing a semi-continuity fiber prepreg material comprising
the step of generating a plurality of notches on a fiber prepreg
material along at least one direction, wherein the plurality of
notches are intermittency notches or continuity notches, so that
the fiber prepreg material forms the semi-continuity fiber prepreg
material which is soft and suitable for molding.
[0012] According to the third embodiment, the composite material
manufacturing method using semi-continuity fiber prepreg material,
comprising the steps of: (a) rolling a semi-continuity fiber
prepreg material to be a tube billet or a cylinder billet; (b)
putting the tube billet or the cylinder billet into a forming mold;
(c) providing an axial pressure via a hot pressing machine and the
forming temperature to make the tube billet or the cylinder billet
become a composite material.
[0013] Above all, the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material, the
manufacturing method thereof and a composite material made of the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material provided by the invention
uses only an ordinary die knife and a standard punching machine to
chop the necessary knife traces, the shape and the size of the
block and the slice can be rapidly produced and selectively
adjusted, so that the block form material and the slice form
material are soft and a certain proportion of long fiber and short
fiber at the same time. The semi-continuity fiber prepreg material
provided by the invention can be the same with slice molding
compound, and chopped and prearranged based on the shape of the
finished product. The drawback that the fabric prepreg material is
hard for construction can be largely improved, and the composite
material made of the fabric prepreg material has better structural
and heat resistant properties, therefore, it has great market
potential.
[0014] The objective of the present invention will no doubt become
obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the
following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which
is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE APPENDED DRAWINGS
[0015] FIG. 1 shows a flowchart of the steps of manufacturing a
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material according to an embodiment
of the invention.
[0016] FIG. 2A shows a scheme diagram of a first kind of die
knife.
[0017] FIG. 2B.about.FIG. 2D show scheme diagrams of the first kind
of die knife to chop the fiber prepreg material.
[0018] FIG. 3B shows a scheme diagram of a second kind of die knife
to chop the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material.
[0019] FIG. 4 shows the curve diagrams of the three bending tests
of the semi-continuity fabric prepreg, the general prepreg fabric,
and the prepreg fabric in small block form.
[0020] FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of the method of manufacturing a
composite material using the semi-continuity fiber prepreg
material.
[0021] FIG. 6A shows a scheme diagram of forming the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material in the first type of
mold.
[0022] FIG. 6B shows a scheme diagram of forming the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material in the second type of
mold.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0023] The invention provides a semi-continuity fiber prepreg
material, a manufacturing method thereof and a composite material
made of the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material. It should be
noticed that the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material of the
invention is not limited to have chopping notches along two
directions. In practical applications, the semi-continuity fiber
prepreg material can have chopping notches along only one
direction, or the chopping notches along two directions can be
intermittency notches. The only condition is that the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material is soft and suitable for
being molded.
[0024] Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows a flowchart of the
steps for manufacturing the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material
according to an embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment,
the fiber prepreg material can be a carbon fiber/phenolic resin
prepreg fabric. The carbon fiber is woven using a PAN based carbon
fiber of T300 in an 8 harness satin way; the phenolic resin is made
of ammonia, formaldehyde, and phenol in a polymerization way, but
not limited to these. With a continuous prepreg machine, the carbon
fiber fabric passes a phenolic resin container, a thickness control
wheel, and a baker at the temperature of 120.+-.5.degree. C. in a
predetermined speed to make the carbon fiber/phenolic resin prepreg
fabric which contains resin about 35-40%.
[0025] The semi-continuity fiber prepreg material manufacturing
method forms notches along at least one direction on a fiber
prepreg material, the notches along at least one direction can be
continuity notches or intermittency notches to make the fiber
prepreg material soft and suitable for molding.
[0026] In an embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, at first, step S20 is
performed to use a plurality of intermittency knife to chop a
plurality of intermittency notch on a region of the fabric prepreg
material in a first direction and define the width of the region.
Then, step S22 is performed to use continuous knife to chop the
region in a second direction, so that the continuous notches
crossing the plurality of intermittency notch are generated and the
length of the region is also defined.
[0027] In fact, the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material made by
the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material manufacturing method is
not limited to have chopping notches along two directions. The only
condition is that the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material is
soft and suitable for being molded. Therefore, the semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material manufacturing method can also make a
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material with notches along only one
direction, or a semi-continuity fiber prepreg material with
intermittency notches along two directions, but not limited to
these.
[0028] Please refer to FIG. 2A to FIG. 2D. FIG. 2A shows a scheme
diagram of a first-type die 4; FIG. 2B to FIG. 2D show a scheme
diagram of chopping the fabric prepreg material 6 with the
first-type die 4 according to the invention. As shown in FIG. 2A,
the die 4 includes a first knife set 40 and a second knife set 42.
Wherein, the first knife set 40 includes a plurality of knife 400
(intermittency) and width knife 402 (continuous); the second knife
set 42 includes a plurality of knife 420 (continuous) and length
knife 422 (continuous). In this embodiment, a first knife set 40 is
arranged in a horizontal direction, and a second knife set 42 is
arranged in a vertical direction. However, in fact, the arrangement
of the first knife set 40 and the second knife set 42 may have
other probabilities, not limited to this case. And, the knife can
be continuous or intermittency based on the different
applications.
[0029] At first, the first knife set 40 of the die 4 is used to
chop a plurality of intermittency notch 600 on the region 60 of the
fabric prepreg material 6, and the width knife 402 of the first
knife set 40 is used to chop the width 602 of the region 60, as
shown in FIG. 2B.
[0030] Then, the die 4 is horizontally moved to chop the region 60
of the fabric prepreg material 6, so that the continuous knife 420
of the die 4 can chop continuous notches to cross the plurality of
intermittency notch 600 on the region 60, and the length knife 422
of the die can chop the length 606 of the region. It should be
noticed that since the knife of the die 4 performs a chopping
action in a horizontal movement, so that a square material (the
region 60) with the crossed intermittency notches 600 and
continuous notches 604 and the vertical intermittency notch and
width of the next region 60 can be generated at the same time, as
shown in FIG. 2C. FIG. 2D shows the square material generated in
this embodiment. Another possible method is to use the die with the
type of the knife shown in FIG. 2D to directly chop the square
material shown in FIG. 2D, but this die is very hard to be
manufactured and maintained.
[0031] If the chopping machine has functions of automatically
horizontal movement of the knife base and automatically material
sending, a roll of fabric prepreg can be rapidly chopped into
square materials with intermittency notches. After the chopping,
each of the square materials has a mixture of 50% longer fiber and
50% shorter fiber, so that the square material has better softness
and its properties are better than the short fiber molding compound
and the fabric prepreg material chopped into small squares. In
addition, the die 4 used in the invention is the auto-chopping
machine widely applied in shoe manufacturing industry, not
specially made chopping machine. And, the condition that the knife
of the chopping machine used in prior art generates heat to soften
the resin and be attacked to the knife will not happen easily.
[0032] Please refer to FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B, FIG. 3A shows a scheme
diagram of the second-type die 4; FIG. 3B shows a scheme diagram of
chopping the fabric prepreg material 6 via the second-type die 4 in
this invention. The difference between FIG. 3A and the
above-mentioned FIG. 2A is that the die 4 of the FIG. 3A has no
width knife 402 of FIG. 2A, therefore, the rectangle material shown
in FIG. 3B is generated, not the square material shown in FIG.
2D.
[0033] The types and applications mentioned above are only
embodiments of the semi-continuity fiber/resin prepreg material of
the invention; people skilled in this technologic region can make
other changes and applications easily. For example, different types
of knives can be used based on requirements of the applications, so
that the size of chopped squares can be smaller than 10 cm or
larger than 10 cm, or chopped into rectangle or other forms, or the
proportion of the longer fiber and the shorter fiber can be larger
or smaller than 1:1. Or the entire roll of prepreg fabric is only
chopped to form intermittency notches instead of being chopped to
be a plurality of square, and further chopped to be the required
size and shape when it is used. Moreover, the entire roll of fabric
prepreg can be firstly chopped into a plurality of slice material
with specific width (e.g., 100 mm) in a manual or automatic way,
and then chopped into the require shapes and notches by the die and
the ordinary chopping machine.
[0034] Please refer to FIG. 4, FIG. 4 shows the curve diagrams of
the three bending tests on the plate sample made of the
semi-continuity fabric prepreg A, the general prepreg fabric B, and
the prepreg fabric in small block form C. As shown in FIG. 4, the
semi-continuity fabric prepreg A of the invention is better than
the block material C in the three bending tests. Compared to the
general prepreg fabric B, although the semi-continuity fabric
prepreg A of the invention has poor strength, due to the fact that
it has larger deformed amount before the destruction, it has better
toughness.
[0035] Please refer to FIG. 5. FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of the
method of manufacturing a composite material using the
semi-continuity fiber prepreg material. As shown in FIG. 5, this
embodiment mainly makes a heat resistant tube using the
above-mentioned semi-continuity fiber prepreg material.
[0036] At first, step S80 is performed to roll a semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material on a mold; then, step S82 is performed to
heat the mold rolling the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material,
and provide an axial pressure; at last, step S84 is performed to
form a composite material.
[0037] In practical applications, with the semi-continuity fabric
prepreg chopped in the above-mentioned embodiments, since the
notches make each slice material soft, and the semi-continuity
fabric prepreg includes 50% longer fiber and 50% shorter fiber.
Please refer to FIG. 6A, FIG. 6A shows a scheme diagram of forming
the semi-continuity fabric prepreg 802 in the first-type mold. As
shown in FIG. 6A, with the mold center of the mold 800, the
semi-continuity fabric prepreg 802 can be rolled into a tube seed
material to make the tube seed material form a 50% continuous fiber
in ring direction, the mold 800 is heated and provided an axial
pressure, so that the tube seed material will become a composite
material with reinforced fiber in ring direction.
[0038] Since the semi-continuity fabric prepreg 802 is soft and is
limited by the wall of the tube mold in radial direction,
therefore, when it is pressed by an axial forming pressure, not
only the continuousness of the continuous fiber in ring direction
can be maintained, but also the tube seed material will become
denser due to the radial shortening. In addition, the radial
shortening will make the shorter fiber parallel to the axis tilt to
or convert to horizontal or tilted arrangements (depends on the
dense degree of the rolling), filled between the continuous fibers
in ring direction to form a net structure.
[0039] Please refer to FIG. 6B. FIG. 6B shows a scheme diagram of
forming the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material 802 in the
second-type mold 800. As shown in FIG. 6B, the invention is not
limited to manufacturing a straight tube by using the composite
material, and the tube can be also a taper pipe, a cylinder, or a
tube with irregular contours. In other words, the suitable mold 800
can be designed based on the shape and size of the finished product
in this invention, therefore, the waste of the material and the
following treatments can be reduced, and the continuous fiber in
ring direction will not become discontinuous due to the
treatments.
[0040] In practical applications, the carbonation/plastic
infiltration process can be repeated to the carbon-phenolic
material with the net structure in the invention, so that the
carbon-phenolic composite material with the net structure can be
made to be applied to the nozzle of the rocket, and applied to
high-performance friction material (e.g., braking block), but not
limited to this.
[0041] Compared to the prior arts, the semi-continuity fiber
prepreg material, the manufacturing method thereof and a composite
material made of the semi-continuity fiber prepreg material
provided by the invention only uses an ordinary die knife and a
standard punching machine to chop the necessary knife traces, and
the shape and the size of the block and the slice can be rapidly
produced and selectively adjusted, so that the block form material
and the slice form material are soft and a certain proportion of
long fiber and short fiber at the same time. The semi-continuity
fiber prepreg material provided by the invention can be the same
with slice molding compound, and chopped and prearranged based on
the shape of the finished product. The drawback that the fabric
prepreg material is hard for construction can be largely improved,
and the composite material made of the fabric prepreg material has
better structure and heat resistant properties, therefore, it has
great market potential. Although the present invention has been
illustrated and described with reference to the preferred
embodiments thereof, it should be understood that it is in no way
limited to the details of such embodiment but is capable of
numerous modifications within the scope of the appended claims.
* * * * *